Collaborating with the Mutaween

The following video from German TV discusses the close association of German border police with the Saudi government. It focuses on the collaboration between the Germans and the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, more commonly known as the mutaween, or the “religious police”. The mutaween serve as front-line enforcers of sharia in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and operate with virtual impunity. According to this report, the German police officers are actually subordinate to their Saudi counterparts.

Many thanks to Hermes for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:

A complete transcript is below the jump:

00:01

In recent months FAKT went deeper into this

00:05

secret project, making terrifying discoveries.

00:09

Contrary to what the government says, these images

00:13

prove that federal police work not for the government,

00:17

but hand-in-hand with the military company EADS.

00:21

German officers and company workers share an office,

00:25

make their training plans together. They are a team

00:29

in a project of millions. The military company

00:33

has sold a huge border-protecting facility to the Saudis,

00:37

with infrared cameras, ground radar, locating systems

00:41

and a surveillance centre, and the German police

00:45

are a part of the deal.

00:49

This is very clearly an EADS project,

00:53

and the federal police are just contractors of EADS,

00:57

German officers serving a military company.

01:01

But this is not all. After having confirmed a great

01:05

number of irregularities at the training project,

01:09

new investigations by FAKT revealed a new problem.

01:13

The Saudi religious police work in the entire project.

01:17

They are part of the border surveillance, have a fixed place

01:21

in the operational centre of the high-tech border.

01:25

There is a leading officer in this surveillance room,

01:29

and in addition a representative of the religious police, who

01:33

has a fix place there, and also makes decisions.

01:37

The Saudi religious police are very brutal, irregular;

01:41

they put sharia law into practice through violence.

01:45

Countless human rights abuses are attributed to them.

01:49

The Interior Ministry explained to an inquiry by FAKT

01:53

that no religious police were taking part in the

01:57

training courses, but this is a half-truth, because

02:01

the guardians of religion have another task: with the commanding officer